The Topkapi Story

It was a fascination with Tulips that first lured me to Turkey... the word for tulip originates from the Turkish word for Turban.

The Cassandra Goad advent calendar 2000

In the mornings I would walk down to The Topkapi palace at the end of Soğuk Çeşme street and into the gardens and with eyes half closed , imagine the tulips. The mixture of vibrant colours on the petals (and then on the tulip patterned tiles throughout the Palace) fascinated me , with the intensity of design spreading into the abundant calligraphy. In the furthest rooms lay teacups decorated with diamonds and hubbly bubbly pipe ends in amber and precious stones.

It was only when I came back to London , with 6" x 4 " pictures printed from my film camera that I realised the cylindrical decorations of the pipes would make the most wonderful Eternity rings - and so the Topkapi One and Topkapi Two collections were born .

Cassandra's photo of the hubbly bubbly pipes that inspired the Topkapi design